1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, a program, a control target device, and an information processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, control target devices including display devices such as TVs and recording devices such as video recorders have been in widespread use mainly in households. In order to cause such a control target device to execute desired processing, a user can use an information processing apparatus which controls the control target device by transmitting a command using a radio signal to the control target device and causing the control target device to execute the command, for example. The information processing apparatus is referred to as remote control or remote commander, and, as the types thereof, there are exemplified an RF (Radio Frequency) remote control and an infrared remote control.
Meanwhile, since the kinds of the control target devices become diverse, it is assumed that one information processing apparatus, which transmits a command to a control target device, is provided for each of the control target devices. However, when an information processing apparatus is provided for each of the control target devices, the number of the information processing apparatuses which the user has to manage increases each time a new control target device is installed, and hence, the management of the information processing apparatuses by the user becomes complicated. Consequently, there have been carried out many attempts for controlling multiple control target devices by one information processing apparatus (for example, refer to JP-A-10-322782). The information processing apparatus having a function of controlling multiple control target devices is also referred to as universal remote control, and, by using the universal remote control, the user can reduce the effort of managing the information processing apparatuses.